


Shadows at Midday

by NightsMistress



Category: Vagrant Story
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-16
Updated: 2018-09-16
Packaged: 2019-06-18 11:46:02
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,681
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15485046
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NightsMistress/pseuds/NightsMistress
Summary: Samantha searches Leá Monde for answers to the questions that plague her. The answers she gets from Sydney do nothing to quell her fears.





	Shadows at Midday

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Rose Argent (roseargent)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/roseargent/gifts).



Leá Monde in the fullness of day is an awe-inspiring sight. The dappled light filtered through trees thick with leaves makes the water that bisects the city look like a gentle stream. The cobblestones of Rue Lumière are encrusted with lichen and moss, and now that Samantha knows where to look she can see the ancient Kiltean runes carved into the walls again and again. Leá Monde looks more like a place in a story, rather than a city where all five thousand souls perished in a single night following a devastating earthquake.

The marks left by the earthquake are shocking, the destruction total. The histories report that Leá Monde’s streets were clear of obstruction, with the river a quiet counterpoint to the bubble of voices echoing on the stone walls. Time has turned the abandoned city into a maze: garrets that once stood open have fallen and rusted in place, masterfully laid stones are torn apart and water flows between the jagged edges, and fallen walls create large obstructions too slippery with moss and damp to traverse.

Though the Crimson Blades have secured this area, their hold on the area is fragile and require constant patrols to clean out infestations of demons. Samantha stands at the top of a rise of stairs, gazes down the length of the broken street, and knows that she is stepping where she should not tread.

“We should not be here,” she breathes. It’s a sentiment she’s kept close to her chest. Romeo would have counselled her against fear, but he is brave while Samantha doubts, and he is not here. It is only her and the empty city, and it will not tell her secrets.

There’s a growl on the other side of the stairs, and Samantha turns around in time to see a Cold One finish climbing the sheer drop. She ducks out of the way of its greatsword as it swings it down in a brutal arc, careful not to lose her footing on the landing. She draws her sword as she straightens in anticipation of the fight.

She is momentarily taken aback at the sight of the Cold One, as it is one of their own. The tabard it wears is the rose tattooed under Samantha’s collarbone, but there is no other insignia to tell her who they were once. She can see several ways how they might have died from the injuries left behind: a blow to the skull so devastating it flattened the left side, a terribly deep blow along the ribcage that tore through armor and flesh alike, the strange jerky stumble of a body forced to walk with a broken spine. All would have killed this poor nameless soldier, and it pains her that she does not know how they fell or where.

The shriek from its throat is ghastly as it swings the greatsword again. There is no sign of strain in its slow, unstoppable swings. The Cold Ones do not tire, but they are slow to react. Samantha, on the other hand, is quick and decisive after she overcomes her initial surprise. Battle is simple, simplifying everything down to her-against-them, and fighting this corpse is easier again. Their soul is long gone after all.

She pushes them down the stairs one step at a time, her swordplay deft enough that it must remain on the defensive. The sword still comes down, but she evades it every time as quicksilver as a fish. Finally, she pushes it to slip and fall, and as it sprawls on the ground she cuts it down. There’s one last haunting shriek, and then the corpse falls to the ground like an unstrung puppet.

She pants over the broken corpse as she wipes her blade clean of gore and sheathes it. The body does not dissipate, suggesting that the soldier had died not long before and the Dark’s hold on it is not so great.

Learning their name is an easy, if gruesome, task. Samantha prises the helmet off and throws it into the water. The face underneath is unlovely and distorted from the terrible blow that stove her skull in, but Samantha recognises the young soldier anyway. Lillie had been one of the most fervent in her desire to burn out the Müllenkamp heretics, a zeal that Samantha recognised as akin to her own when she had been Lillie’s age. She had hoped once this campaign was over to nurture Lillie’s talents. Too late now. Lillie was gone, and the unshriven dead would only animate her corpse again and again unless Samantha took steps to stop their pillage.

The last sigil she had broken had barred her passage to a winery, its wares dusty and rare. The door stood ajar only a few steps away, and she thinks she can spare the time before another wandering soul attempts to claim Lillie’s body for its own. She strides in, and claims the first bottle she can find for her purposes. The label suggests that it is a vintage from a decade before her birth, its contents priceless.

She pours its contents over Lillie’s body and sets it alight. Her body burns white-hot, the flesh burning to ash with remarkable swiftness. That is not surprising; bodies affected by the Dark turn into dust and ashes at an uncanny rate and all she is doing is expediting the process. It may be mere sentiment that causes her to waste time burning the dead, but Lillie and all the other soldiers were sworn to Samantha’s cause, fought under Samantha’s banner, and all she can give them in return is a funeral pyre.

The flesh burns away inside the armor, exposing naked bone: the vacant grin of the skull with its terrible crush injury, the curve of the ribcage, the long shattered lengths of her legs. The flame is not hot enough to burn bone, but the a skeleton will offer little protection to tormented souls during the day.

Once the flames die down, she drops the bottle at the foot of Lillie’s corpse. The bottle shatters with a hauntingly beautiful crystalline cry. That cry had disturbed her at first, until Romeo had told her that it was a mark of authenticity for Leá Monde wines, that they all sobbed on being broken. _Spirits in truth_ , he had said, his smile ironic. She had not appreciated the jape.

“Be free, and return to the Lord,” she says to Lillie’s body, head bowed in prayer. It is not the last rites that a soldier of the Crimson Blades deserves, but Samantha is also no priest to administer those rites. This is the best she can do.

The sound of metal clapping together startles her from her reverie. She whirls around to face the stairs once more, hand on the hilt of her sword in preparation to strike.

Sydney stands on the stairs, clapping as he smirks at her. There is no earthly explanation for how he came to be behind her; he is dry and not a single hair is out of place, so he did not climb up as the Cold One had, and he did not pass her.

“Have you no shame?” She emphasises her demand by racing up the stairs and plunging her sword where Sydney’s chest should be. He slips away easily, his expression dismissive as he shifts precisely enough that her blade passes through air without losing his footing on the slippery stairs. She makes no second attempt to strike him down. Not yet.

“It’s a pretty spectacle,” Sydney drawls. “But ultimately pointless. Do you think Leá Monde has enough wine to wash away your guilt?”

“Why are you here?” Samantha grinds out through gritted teeth. She wants nothing more than to run Sydney through with her sword, but Romeo has counselled her to be cautious and use her opportunities wisely. Sydney is capricious and cunning; he would not be here unless he had motive.

“I might ask you the same,” Sydney says. His words are lazy, but there’s the snap of a wrist throwing a knife in them. “Why are you here? Love may have been the chain that brought you to heel, but why have you not slipped your leash?”

It sickens her how easily he commands attention while he spouts cryptic riddles and insults her. He is incandescently, unearthly beautiful, and it is a weakness in her that her heart can belong to Romeo alone while she still finds a heretic captivating. She hates him, but she is also drawn to his flame. That she is the moth in this analogy is not lost on her, and she refuses to be turned to ash.

“We are here for you,” she says, and makes no attempt to keep the loathing out of her voice. “We come to cleanse your filth from this city. Have the dead not suffered enough already?”

“You say you have come to cleanse, but you will cleanse aught and leave empty-handed,” Sydney tells her. “Surely by now you know that your troops are falling by the score before the Dark, with death as no respite.”

“They die because your cultists kill them,” Samantha retorts. “Don’t play at ignorance; it is an role you play poorly.”

“Really?” Sydney shrugs. “Then who were you fighting before? That was no follower of mine, methinks.”

He gestures at Lillie’s burned corpse. Samantha glances at her, and then looks away. She reminds herself that the spirit that had made Lillie her loyal soldier is long gone and free of earthly cares. What Samantha had fought, slayed, and burned, was a cruel mockery of life.

“It is by your foul magicks that the body is animated without a soul.”

Sydney’s smile widens.

“Her soul has been taken by the Lord, as are all pious souls.” Samantha glares at Sydney. “Perhaps if you pray, God may hear you and grant you absolution.”

Sydney laughs, and it is cold and cruel.

“No. Your dead and powerless god is not here. Your soldiers will all die before dawn, their souls forced to wander naked in a world that is unbearably painful, unless they can find a corpse to take bittersweet respite inside.”

His proclamation has the ring of prophecy, and that makes Samantha afraid.

“They won’t,” she snaps, and lunges once more with her sword. Sydney evades it again, which she had anticipated. She pivots to her left, following his line of sight, and strikes. She hits the wall instead, the tip of her sword scraping the stone hideously.

She whirls around once more to find Sydney behind her with a closed garret between them. She knows that garret was rusted shut with little hope of opening. He is standing too far away from the bars for her to strike him with her sword, and that is a small comfort; he considers her enough of a threat to stay out of reach.

Then, even that pleasure is taken from her. He stares at her, his insolent tongue stilled at last, his expression abstract and vague.

Samantha remembers being told that Sydney has some ability to see into the hearts of people, that his converts come from those he has used his powers to scry their innermost hopes and desires. She picks up a rock and throws it at him. He bats it away with a metal hand, the impact echoing through the length of the stone walls. It will attract the Cold Ones, but Samantha knows how to dispatch those. Better them than a malevolent heretic using his diabolerie on her.

“What are you doing?” She picks up another rock.

“Do you think immortality a magical cordial to cure all ills, Samantha?” There is no mockery now, only a weary bitterness that belies his angelic appearance. He stretches his arms wide and his head falls back as he gazes upon the ruins of a city murdered two decades earlier. “The souls of Leá Monde would tell you of your folly, if you listen.”

As if in answer, the North wind howls. Samantha can hear a susurrus of voices entangled in the air, and she bites down on her bottom lip hard enough to split the skin. The tang of the copper steadies her, and the wind is just air once more.

“Stop that,” she says, and is dismayed that her voice shakes. The voices are gone, but in their absence she can feel something else moving in the dark. “I am strong against your blandishments.”

“Oh no,” Sydney breathes. “You are anything but, Commander. You cower from the Dark, thinking that covering your eyes from it makes you anything other than blind. It has touched you. I wonder — what powers will flower inside you?”

“I said, still your tongue!” She shouts to drown out the tide in her ears, roaring underneath her feet as she balances on a terribly narrow precipice. She knows that if she falters now she will fall, and she is terrified of what that means. The Dark keeps what it claims and they still do not have the Gran Grimoire to remove the Dark’s taint from the Crimson Blades, let alone Romeo’s true immortality.

“Your beloved Romeo seems to have told you nothing.” Sydney mocks her, all the more galling as he remains hiding behind the bars of the garret. “Mayhap he seeks to hone you into a weapon, one that cuts all the keener for the scraps he tosses you from his table. Did he test you for uncanny abilities while also counselling you to abjure the Dark?”

This time, Samantha throws the rock. It is a desperate throw with little thought in it, thrown to silence both him and the terrible urges that well inside her. It should miss, flying harmlessly through the air to strike the wall behind him as he vanishes from its path. Instead, Sydney vanishes only to appear directly in the stone’s path. It strikes him on the cheek, sharp edges splitting the skin. Sydney reaches up to touch it, his eyes wide with surprise. Blood trickles down his face to fall to the ground, only for each droplet to turn to dust as it strikes the moss-covered cobblestones.

Samantha stares at what she has wrought, her breath caught in her throat. Sydney had evaded all of their assaults with contemptuous ease, only to be struck by something as mundane as a rock. It seems absurd. It seems miraculous.

She tells herself it means nothing that this miracle came about because she surrendered to the Dark, even momentarily.

“ — ah, I forget,” Sydney says, shaking his head. His smile is vulpine, barely hiding fangs. “The Dark is nothing if not exquisitely exact with its irony.” He turns from her, exposing his bare back to her. The intricate tattoo on his back appears to pulse in her vision. “Have a care, Samantha, that you do not close your ears when the Dark whispers what will be.”

He vanishes then, and does not appear nearby to taunt her further.

Once she is sure that Sydney will not return, Samantha reaches into her pocket to retrieve her rood bracelet. A simple thing of pale wood stained to a soft amber and clear glass beads, her parents had gifted it to her when she first joined the Crimson Blades. It has kept her safe through countless missions.

“Saint Iocus, please hear my prayer,” she breathes, clutching the wood amulet in her hand hard enough that she can feel the carvings impress themselves into her palm. “Shelter me from misfortune so that I may return to His embrace by His design.”

There is no answer. She is disturbed that she had expected one; only children expect that God will answer their prayers directly. She has her faith, and that is shield enough in this city. She looks around one last time before turning and leaving the way she came. They must secure the city from the cultists and wrest the secret of immortality from them. The Crimson Blades have given too much, sacrificed too much, for Romeo to leave empty-handed.


End file.
